Min/Max'ing and crafting/fighting

@Jetah Probably yes, but not necessarily with the stat allocation you want. Horizontal doesn't mean every item has the exact same stats, just that there are no direct linear upgrades or tiers.

i never said it was the same stats. i only said more options. like Gothix mentioned with the resist above. those are options but not more power.

just that there are no direct linear upgrades or tiers.

sounds to me like there are different tiers just not direct power increases. that doesn't necessarily make it a horizontal system. but i'll withhold some speculation because I haven't seen the gear line up.

being that gear, attributes, skills is just a formula there will be a 'best', that's why min-maxers exist(...)

I think the point was that while there is a 'best' for a specific build, opponent and environment, the 'best build' can drastically change from character to character from opponent to opponent and from environment to environment and at one point there are so many 'best builds' that it's tricky to keep track

(Example being that your coat of heat might protect you against the effects of cold in the snow while fighting an ice elemental, it would be stupid in the desert fighting a dragon)

So all items will have a specific amount of stats and how those are distributed will be different? Does this mean that even the basic items will have the same amount of total statistics as the items created with the best materials possible just spread over more categories? Are there going to be categories not allowed with base materials where advanced materials are able to cover?

I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how I'm going to be improving my character if a newly created character has access to the same stuff as my guy who has been around for years. If all there is to do is explore and see new stuff and gain knowledge eventually a player will achieve all of that. In fact, it is my experience that hardcore gamers will blast through new content at a rate much faster than devs can produce. Without vertical advancement on characters what will keep those players from leaving?

I hope the devs are not trying to create a world where everyone is equal in power. That's not realistic nor will it be fun. Players have to see improvement in their character or what is the point of playing? Just like in real life not everyone is created equal. You have professional sports players and you have backyard scrubs who don't get picked for teams. The good thing about a game is with time and work you can be that professional. However, if everyone is equal and never hopes to be more than that what is there to do in the game? Exploration and socialization will not compel a player to stay long. I also don't even see the point of treasure if it basically does nothing other than alter cosmetics. If there is no increase in power other than across a horizontal tier that gives you better stats for a specific situation why chase loot? I'd much rather have armor that covers a broad spectrum than have to have 10 different sets of armor depending upon where I was going for that day. Not to mention you aren't going to carry all that armor with you to trade out for each area you travel through.

I will just have to wait to see the system working for myself before I understand it I guess.

@Farlander what you say is completely inaccurate. stat wise, all of us are born equal. It is how our parents, then teachers specialise us and how willing we are to specialise in anything that makes us stronger. Body builders focus on strength, researchers focus on intelligence, builders balanace both of the two, fortune tellers max out charisma, etc. Our lives are a perfect horizontal progression. If effort isn't put in, our stats all go into laziness instead of strength, intelligence, charisma, etc. You will never get a farmer to sit still. They have a laziness stat of 0.

In terms of what people can do in game, the majority of the progression will be learning how to take on everything from different ways. Learning the ways of the land of Fractured. Even in games with vertical progression, people get bored and run out of things to do. there is still a cap, regardless. most games, spend $50,000 and u will have nothing to do within a week or two.

being that gear, attributes, skills is just a formula there will be a 'best', that's why min-maxers exist(...)

I think the point was that while there is a 'best' for a specific build, opponent and environment, the 'best build' can drastically change from character to character from opponent to opponent and from environment to environment and at one point there are so many 'best builds' that it's tricky to keep track

(Example being that your coat of heat might protect you against the effects of cold in the snow while fighting an ice elemental, it would be stupid in the desert fighting a dragon)

Perfect balance is utopistic wish imo and most likely there will be few top builds which are most effective and part of meta. This can only be handled with constant balance changes/fixes for gear and abilities, which always affects for everything else. So yeah we are going to see different kind of builds, but FotM style is most likely the only way. You are right, that there will be some situational builds related for environment, but still it is really hard to see a good amount of viable builds in meta because of that..

@Tuoni not really. we all still die from one bullet to the head, regardless of what we have specialised in. In effect, we all have say 200 stats at birth, and it is where we place them that builds who we are. we dont gain stats, we dont lose them, we only move them around based on what we do in our day to day lives.

@Farlander I share your concern. Even in Fractured the main focus will be in horizontal progression, which is totally fine, it should also have some vertical to keep players interested. Maybe the progression can be 75% horizontal and 25% vertical just for example.

@Tuoni not really. we all still die from one bullet to the head, regardless of what we have specialised in. In effect, we all have say 200 stats at birth, and it is where we place them that builds who we are. we dont gain stats, we dont lose them, we only move them around based on what we do in our day to day lives.

If we think of people's attributes, we are certainly not getting even amount of points, if that can be said so. Some people can be charismatic, powerful and intelligent at the same time and even at higher level in every aspect than others.

And if we think that body builder (what you used as an example). If he trains, he will get more strength and constitution which is purely vertical progression. He can now more easily beat weaker enemies in melee combat. If he trains different kind of body building technics for example, then he will progress horizontally. He is not getting more strenght, but gets more ways to do so.

So all items will have a specific amount of stats and how those are distributed will be different? Does this mean that even the basic items will have the same amount of total statistics as the items created with the best materials possible just spread over more categories? Are there going to be categories not allowed with base materials where advanced materials are able to cover?

I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how I'm going to be improving my character if a newly created character has access to the same stuff as my guy who has been around for years. If all there is to do is explore and see new stuff and gain knowledge eventually a player will achieve all of that. In fact, it is my experience that hardcore gamers will blast through new content at a rate much faster than devs can produce. Without vertical advancement on characters what will keep those players from leaving?

I hope the devs are not trying to create a world where everyone is equal in power. That's not realistic nor will it be fun. Players have to see improvement in their character or what is the point of playing? Just like in real life not everyone is created equal. You have professional sports players and you have backyard scrubs who don't get picked for teams. The good thing about a game is with time and work you can be that professional. However, if everyone is equal and never hopes to be more than that what is there to do in the game? Exploration and socialization will not compel a player to stay long. I also don't even see the point of treasure if it basically does nothing other than alter cosmetics. If there is no increase in power other than across a horizontal tier that gives you better stats for a specific situation why chase loot? I'd much rather have armor that covers a broad spectrum than have to have 10 different sets of armor depending upon where I was going for that day. Not to mention you aren't going to carry all that armor with you to trade out for each area you travel through.

I will just have to wait to see the system working for myself before I understand it I guess.

I can give you an example of Eve Online. Eve is a space based sci-fi game with skills that are learned by the character in real time. some skills are a few minutes, while others can take 3 months. Skills vary between mining, processing, manufacturing, specific tier of ship (frigate, cruiser, battleship, etc), science, blueprint research, specific weapon systems, etc. While most of the skills dont make your character more powerful (there's a note here, btw) they do make your character more versatile. A character that can use 5 tiers of ships can be better than someone that just focuses on 1. Someone who can use 4 weapon types can be better than someone who just uses 1. Contrary to this, the person who focuses on 1 can perform better because of the higher skill which grants the specific bonus.
*note: There is a power increase but it's usually only 1-5% per tier of skill and every skill has 5 tiers.

Part of Eve is getting into bigger ships but also getting money to maintain your game style. You need the cash to replace items and to keep your character from losing skills learned. Another part is political. Trying to get Alliances to wage war, trying to prevent war. try to show you're better equipped and thus should maybe ally.

Eve has been going for over 15 years.

One problem with Eve is the time based training. It suffers from getting new players because it takes months to years to feel great about your characters capabilities. A new player is great for being in cheap ships, usually the frigates, using electronic warfare mods (skills). While the mid tier players are in Cruisers and Battleships doing damage overall while the vets are in Capital and Super Capital devastating things.

Fractured will have the problem of not having better ships but will require a player to gear for an area. Warm clothes for cold, cool clothes for tropical, etc. I suspect it'll take a while to get to the location so you wont expect to have 10 full outfits on you at all times. it'll more or less be "we're doing to this cold place, put it in your bags so you can swap to them when it gets cold". I'd personally would love to see wagons being used to hold your gear for the travels until a town with a bank can be established.

I also suspect the lure of PvP via invasions will draw people too. I see the Beastkin getting bored faster because no PvP on their planet outside of invasions. This means they'll be better geared than Humans and Demons on average.

@Xzait
a weight lifter has to lift weights or they'll lose their strength. they dont need to get sick for that to happen.

If you look at the game from two core characteristics: knowledge system and exploring, then horizontal progression makes all the sence in the world. Being able to do well in other environments, needs you to develop knowledge and specialize in certain resistance (armour) for example.

It is not about me able to kill another noob or not. I just hate that kind of games, where seal cub slaying is a thing.

If you look at this game as the next PvP game on the market, I understand that people want to be able to be a meta and kill all other, but aren't there enough other games already who just facilitate that?

League of Legends (LoL) would be another example that has been on the market for years on end and knows no vertical progression. Actually, the developers stated that they want Fractured to be MOBA influenced (early on).

League of Legends (LoL) would be another example that has been on the market for years on end and knows no vertical progression. Actually, the developers stated that they want Fractured to be MOBA influenced (early on).

Every game of LOL has progression that's what the shop/items are stat upgrades, it even has leveling. Heroes of the storm is closer to vertical progression as no shop item stat upgrades, and that still has leveling, - i have not played a moba that has vertical progression, apart from infinate money counter strike games (if you count them as mobas)

@Xzait
a weight lifter has to lift weights or they'll lose their strength. they dont need to get sick for that to happen.

thanks Captain Obvious... that is the whole 'moving stats around' i commented about. Effort is put in to maintain a min/max build in a real life aspect. What next? you will say you lose intelligence if you don't use your brain?

@Xzait Everyone may be "born" with the same amount of points to spend on stats but in real life that is not true. In real life there are disabilities people are born with. That is another whole topic that is not worth discussing since the game does not start you with those.

However, what we can discuss, which is my point all along, is that a new player has the starting amount of points. A well played character will have access to gear that has boosted their stats. From the chart provided here

It seems stats cap at 21 unless the chart just doesn't show further. If a player has found gear that boosts all their stats to 20 (if that is even possible) they most assuredly have a vertical progression over a starting player. At 20 every stat has a special bonus. If a player had all of those they will dominate a new character. Granted a new character could get to that point but that is how all vertical games progress. A well developed character with a larger stat pool is definitely more powerful than a newly made character with starting gear and stats. Even if those stats don't all go to 20+ they still have more total stats which gives them an edge. I have not seen anywhere that we are told you have x amount of total stats you can have from all items. If there is no hard cap for every character then vertical is the limit.

Are you going to tell me that starting gear is equal to gear crafted with advanced materials? Does advanced gear come with stat equalizing? For every bonus there is a negative?

Now let's move to knowledge. According to this chart if you blow it up and read it

Says all over the place as you increase your knowledge you gain x amount of bonus to stats. For example do you think a newly created character could take on a player who has endurance regen, stamina regen, mana regen. Let's say the character has maxed all his knowledge. He now has tons of small bonuses which in total does amount to alot of power increase. We've been told knowledge is not limited. You can literally learn everything. Did I remember that statement wrong? If you can learn everything then again you move vertically upward.

This is why I'm confused over people saying horizontal progression when I see alot of vertical progression.

In this article they talk about horizontal knowledge being you have 8 slots to fill with skills. As you learn different ones you have to replace old ones. In this game you can learn everything. Likewise on stats you have x amount to move around and that's the total amount of stat pool you have to work with forever. That works here as well since you can't change your base stats except in comes gear. Like any other game as WoW better gear will mean better characters. If it were horizontal progression then gear would come with say +5 strength but then stack on enough negatives like -2 int, -2 wis and -1 charisma to level it out. Did anyone see that on gear? If gear only came with a bonus then stats are not equal for everyone all the time.

I guess I can't say I've ever played a horizontal game before. Most the games I have played have been rpg gear grabs with leveling. All of which make you much better than starting out. I think of a true horizontal game as a first person shooter. You come out of the spawn just as able to kill another player as they do character wise. From all I have read I just don't see a newly made character able to kill a character that has been well geared and learned all the knowledge.

If so, can I reliably expect to boost an attribute from 20 to the cap with gear? (in Alpha you could get 5+ INT from gear)

How do the permanent +2 attribute increases work from knowledge (can I get them for each attribute, or do I choose one attribute to boost, and that's it?)

The practical consideration is that there are nice bonuses for getting an attribute to natural 20, so depending on the answers to the above questions, it may be worthwhile to not push any attribute past natural 20, in favor of getting multiple attributes to 20.

Not every race work the same, for example, the humans during the character creation, have more available points, but they can't rise an attribute over 18. The other races have fewer points, but different caps and they always have an affinity for one attribute (meaning that the points for that attribute cost less - You can check this spotlight for a more precise explanation.).

Apart from this, another way to increase your attributes is through talents. There are six branches of them, each of whom can give you a max of +2 bonus (You won't be able to have +2 in each of your attributes).

Then there will also be the bonuses from equipment, but, they will be low and rare to obtain, the same for the ones from foods. The armors that you saw in Alpha were just for a testing purpose. So, don't take those as a benchmark.

Isn't the attribute increases a vertical system though? Wouldn't a horizontal system mean everyone is equal (I'd argue against starting attribute differences) thus if a veteran player with 100% knowledge vs a veteran with 50% knowledge vs a noob with 1% (just enough for a build) fought each other the person playing the character would determine the winner? A vertical system, with stat increasing would mean the veteran with 100% would win every time.

As I've said in other comments that I'm open to seeing how the system comes out but everything I'm seeing right now isn't looking good to me.